Employee blaming me for mistakes

[bctf123]

There's a guy who I help and train in another dept when his senior colleague is off. He's not tech savvy and close to retirement and my job and results depend on him handling instructions during absences
Today I was asked why I had asked him to move a pallet to a different location without updating SAP- I hadn't. I think he got flustered and just said it. It is laughable as I won't get sacked or punished but I am mildly cheesed off hahaha

What do I do? I think he has picked up I am a convenient scapegoat since I have to issue him instructions often and am hanging round in his area in those times...and im a bit of a pushover

Is your job more manual rather than office based? That is what it sounds like. I am office based so my advice is in that context.

if I have someone who doesn’t take verbal instructions well, I follow up with an email to confirm our discussion so they have something to refer to. Does that work in your context? Or could you email his manager a summary of the training:instructions?

If that doesn’t work for you, then I would insist that he takes notes next time you train/instruct him and be really upfront that it is because he cited you as the reason he made a mistake before when you’d in fact given him correct instructions that he didn’t follow. You can be really matter of fact about it rather than accusatory and stress that you just want him to be clear on what you trained him on so there is no confusion or mistakes etc. would that work?

My job is actually office based and impacts profitabilityso needs attention. I shouldn't even have to go in the warehouse.
I'm not a manager but the team was always small till now so I used to wear many hats
Over the past two years the main guy has been off sick a lot so I went and got my stuff packed and my supervisor's since she worked from home. The wider team are engineering and are way too busy except to help with forklift

I'm now expert enough to keep things ticking but there's a dedicated new warehouse guy who can use the forklift but not do much else. So again with the sickness I'm helping him complete my tasks by giving instructions while stood there(Otherwise he slinks off to do tasks which he's more used to in his last job of 30 years like moving pallets and taking deliveries)

I cannot avoid going in the warehouse to get things done and keep customers happy

I had an incident a couple of months ago when some items came in and needed the customer PO to be sent out.
He sent me a request to book a shipment for A B C items. I thought he knew what he was doing but turned out didn't and then he blamed me.

The environment is not formal enough to send an email over every single thing. I think the company is aware of wider issues and are planning to give them a manager.

That's a tough one.

I was going to suggest putting it in writing, email/memo/carrier pigeon. He then can't then put the blame on yiu.

But as you can only instruct/help verbally its a bit more difficult

Could you challange him about it. Not in a confrontational way, just something like
"Steve, why did you tell Sue that I told you to move those pallets without updating SAP? Thats not what happenef, can you not do that in the future."

If he thinks he can blame you for his mistakes, he'll keep doing it. Whereas. If you tell him you know what he did, he will more than likely stop it.

Honestly I would just sit down with his manager, point out this stuff, and ask the manager what’s going on with this guy? Ask if there other factors you are not aware of that are impacting his ability to do his job and take instructions from you? Should you be instructing him in a different way?

Be clear that you are all about helping people but you will not tolerate being a scape goat for someone making mistakes and throwing you under the bus.

Thankfully you have your longevity and good reputation to do this.

Again be really matter of fact and solution focused (rather than blame or reputation saving focused) when you do this. By pointing out the inaccuracy about his account of what happened, you are not pointing blame at him, it is simply correcting the record. Then move the conversation on immediately to problem solving. Having some ideas will help. I think the solution needs to involve you looping his manager into any instructions so that his manager is getting the full picture of his performance and can manage him appropriately. I bet this isn’t the only issue the manager is having with him and the manager might actually be grateful for more concrete performance info to act on.